Environmental Performance Indicators:Key Features Of Some Recent Proposals

The paper identifies some key features of the thinking in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development document “A Manual for Preparers and Users of Eco-efficiency Indicators” (2004). The UN approach is compared with that of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in the third generation of its Sustainability Reporting Guidelines issued October 2006 (GRI 2006) and with that set out in “Environmental Key Performance Indicators—Reporting Guidelines for UK Business” (DEFRA and Trucost 2006). Reference is also made to some of the performance indicators given as examples in the international standard on management evaluation of environmental performance issued in 1999 by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO 14031).